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The Denver airport has its good points and its bad points. The bad include being out in the middle of nowhere, miles from downtown, with security checkpoints that always seem to be besieged with long lines of bedraggled travelers.

On the good side of the ledger is the fact that the Denver airport rail system tells you that you’re approaching a concourse with a guitar riff. It’s a snarling combination of quick chords, like the guitarist couldn’t quite decide how to wrap up his solo and just wanted to end it abruptly and get the heck out of there.

On some airport transit systems, you get ethereal chimes, or gently ringing bells, or even harp music to announce that you’re at the next stop. Usually the music is something that is consciously striving to be soothing, like the airport managers are trying to use music calm down everyone who is crammed onto the transit system trying to catch their flight on time. Not Denver! No, the Denver airport train guitar riff has a distinct hard edge to it, properly acknowledging that modern airline travel isn’t exactly a soothing experience.

But I found myself wondering why, if you’re going to go with a guitar approach, you pick some anonymous riff rather than something that people will recognize — like, say, the epic first chord of A Hard Day’s Night, or the first few notes of Stairway to Heaven or Layla. Maybe it’s too expensive to use part of a well-known bit of classic rock, but I’d be willing to bet that if you played one of these snippets about half of the travelers exiting the train would do so with that particular song playing in their heads.

A Hard Day’s Night seems like a particularly apt choice for the airport venue: It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog . . . .

I disagree with Donald Trump about pretty much everything, but I think he’s right about one thing, at least: many American airports are pretty crappy. Describing them as “Third World” in quality may be unfairly insulting to our friends in the Third World.

You realize this when you leave the States. Consider the Calgary airport, for example. The E concourse looks newly built, and is spotlessly clean and spacious. Compare it to, say, some of the cramped, beat-up, and overcrowded terminals at, say, LaGuardia, and you get the President’s point. It’s sn embarrassing comparison. We should be able to match our neighbors to the north in the airport department.

Thursday night found us in the cell phone lot of the Columbus airport, waiting for the arrival of a delayed plane at about 11:30 p.m.

When you think about it, the cell phone lot is a pretty weird place. There you are, cheek by jowl with total strangers, with everyone’s cars packed tightly together. And yet, while you are in close absolute physical proximity, in the sense that the cars and their drivers are literally right next to each other, there is a strong feeling of near complete emotional separation. Everyone remains ensconced in their own little tightly controlled, specially heated or cooled vehicular cocoon, typically with their car in park and their engine humming, paying close attention to their cell phones.

In the cell phone lot, no one acknowledges the people in other cars. No, even eye contact and a simple nod would somehow violate the perverse etiquette of the place. In the cell phone lot, we’re all just there on our own, waiting for that call or a text, like lost souls in purgatory hoping to be summoned to our final destination.

At the Columbus airport lot, there are two curiosities. One is a sign that says you can’t stay in the cell phone lot for more than an hour. An hour? In the psychically sterile cell phone lot, which gives off the ultimate in transient, leave me alone and get me out of here vibes? Even 10 minutes in the lot is soul-crushing.

The other is a picnic table located right next to the lot. I’ve never seen anyone sitting at that table, and I expect I never will. Leave aside for a moment that a spot right next to a parking lot full of cars in idle, leaking exhaust, wouldn’t exactly be the kind of pastoral setting you look for in picnics — not only does no one in the cell phone lot want to leave their cars, they don’t want to see anyone else leave their cars, either. If someone exited their car to sit at the picnic table, I’d predict that the other cars would immediately reposition themselves to form an empty buffer zone between themselves and the person who is breaching all perceived rules of modern behavior and is probably an axe murderer, besides. In fact, the rest of us would probably leave the cell phone lot and take another lap around the baggage claim pick-up zone, just to clear our heads and get away from the unseemly misconduct.

The other day I was in line to pass through security at the Columbus airport when I saw a sign announcing that, effective January 22, 2018, drivers’ licenses from certain states will not be accepted at TSA checkpoints as appropriate identification. According to the sign, licenses from Maine, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana and Washington are not compliant with something called the REAL ID Act.

REAL ID Act? Of course, the name brought back memories of high school days, when your more daring classmates would proudly if furtively show you the fake ID they had acquired (featuring, of course, a name other than “McLovin”) in hopes of buying beer at the local carryout. The TSA sign seemed kind of weird, and I found myself wondering why the federal government has a problem with the licensed issued by the “m” states . . . and Washington. So I followed the instructions on the sign and went to the tsa.gov website to see what it was all about.

I’m as interested in privacy as the next person, but it’s hard for me to get too excited about the REAL ID law. Obviously, there is a need for identification cards, and all of the information that is collected as part of the REAL ID process seems to be already in possession of the federal and state governments, anyway. I’m quite confident that the federal government knows what I look like (or could find out with a few strokes of a keyboard), facial recognition photos or not. And since I have to fly frequently for my job, I need to have an ID card that gets me through security — so I’m glad Ohio licenses are compliant.

It’s troubling to think that people are so distrustful of the federal government that they would be concerned about a database that included photos and basic identification information, like Social Security numbers, that people routinely disclose on things like tax returns. It says something about the fraying relationship between the government and the governed that the question of appropriate identification could be so controversial.

Lately I’ve eaten a lot of dinners in airports. It’s not a good thing. Airport food has definitely improved over the years, but it’s still significantly burger/pizza/chicken-centric and often loaded with sodium, and eating a heavy, salty meal doesn’t exactly sit well when you immediately stumble onto a plane and then sit on your butt for hours.

So, I’ve started looking for these do-it-yourself yogurt/fruit/granola combos when I’m required to eat an airport dinner. They seem reasonably light and reasonably fresh, they’re relatively low in calories and sodium, and they don’t leave you feeling like every ounce of moisture has been sucked from your mouth and a lead ball has been lodged in your stomach.

There are some airports that always seem to be incredibly overcrowded. The Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood airport is one of them. Is it because it’s the end of “the season”? Is it because the airport just hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the surrounding community? Is it because airport planners think it’s hilarious to cram people into concourses like sardines in a tin can?

Who knows? But it’s not a pleasant way to start, or end, a trip to the Sunshine State.

It’s become increasingly common to see people traveling with pets these days. Whether it is service dogs or dogs taken along for comfort or company, canines are a much more frequent sight on airport concourses than they used to be.

All of which leads to the question of what the pooches do when they feel the call of nature. The Philadelphia airport answers the call with a small astroturfed area complete with retrieval bags and a bright red fire hydrant.